To mulch or to munch? Big modelling of big data
| dc.creator | Rodríguez, D. | |
| dc.creator | Voil, P. de | |
| dc.creator | Rufino, Mariana C. | |
| dc.creator | Odendo, M. | |
| dc.creator | Wijk, Mark T. van | |
| dc.date | 2017-05 | |
| dc.date | 2017-02-07T13:27:10Z | |
| dc.date | 2017-02-07T13:27:10Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-06-27T16:37:36Z | |
| dc.description | African farmers are poorly resourced, highly diverse and aground by poverty traps making them rather impervious to change. As a consequence R4D efforts usually result in benefits but also trade-offs that constraint adoption and change. A typical case is the use of crop residues as mulches or as feedstock. Here we linked a database of household surveys with a dynamic whole farm simulation model, to quantify the diversity of trade-offs from the alternative use of crop residues. Simulating all the households in the survey (n = 613) over 99 years of synthetic climate data, showed that benefits and trade-offs from “mulching or munching” differ across agro-ecologies, and within agro-ecologies across typologies of households. Even though trade-offs between household production or income and environmental outcomes could be managed; the magnitude of the simulated benefits from the sustainable intensification of maize-livestock systems were small. Our modelling framework shows the benefits from the integration of socio-economic and biophysical approaches to support the design of development programs. Our results support the argument that a greater focus is required on the development and diversification of farmers' livelihoods within the framework of an improved understanding of the interconnectedness between biophysical, socio-economic and market factors. | |
| dc.identifier | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/79783 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/128558 | |
| dc.language | en | |
| dc.publisher | Elsevier | |
| dc.rights | Open Access | |
| dc.source | Rodriguez, D., Voil, P. de, Rufino, M.C., Odendo, M. and Wijk, M.T. van. 2017. To mulch or to munch? Big modelling of big data. Agricultural Systems 153: 32-42 | |
| dc.subject | mulch | |
| dc.subject | farming systems | |
| dc.subject | research | |
| dc.title | To mulch or to munch? Big modelling of big data | |
| dc.type | Journal Article |